Who, and What, the Tea Party Likes

Tea Party politicians don’t like people who are out of work. In Congress and in campaigns they consistently oppose paying unemployment insurance to the most distressed citizens, those who have been out of work for the longest time. A poll earlier this year found that 70% of Tea Party Republicans oppose extending unemployment benefits and 65% oppose raising the minimum wage, even though most other Republicans favor these policies

They don’t like people who have suffered from catastrophic events beyond their control. Chris McDaniel, the Tea Party favorite who challenged Republican Senator Thad Cochran in a Mississippi primary, said he didn’t know if he would have voted for federal aid to those people in his own state who were devastated by Hurricane Katrina, legislation that passed the Senate unanimously.

They don’t like poor people in general. Their arguments for reducing food stamps are that poor people are not motivated enough to find work, that poor people prefer living off welfare, that poor people are undeserving of public assistance. 84% of Tea Party Republicans believe that government aid to the poor does more harm than good.

They don’t like immigrants. Most of those who identify with the Tea Party want to deport all undocumented immigrants. But Tea Party supporters don’t like immigrants in general: over half think that “immigrants” take away jobs from “Americans”.

They certainly don’t like Muslims. A Brookings/PRRI survey of American attitudes in 2011 found that most Tea Party followers believe that American (not foreign) Muslims are trying to impose Sharia law in the US.

A Public Policy Poll in 2011 found that 46 percent of Mississippi Republicans thought interracial marriage should be illegal.

They don’t like people who are not like them. Pew Research has found that the most conservative Americans are the most likely to want to live where everybody shares their political views. They want to live where everybody shares their religious faith, which is overwhelmingly evangelical Christian. Only 20% of the most conservative want to live among a mixture of people from different ethnic and racial backgrounds. About one-third of the most conservative would be unhappy if a family member married a Democrat and one-quarter don’t want a family member to marry a non-white. That fits with most Tea Party supporters’ generally negative beliefs about African-Americans: a 2010 study found that among whites who approve of the Tea Party movement, “only 35% believe Blacks to be hardworking, only 45% believe Blacks are intelligent, and only 41% think that Blacks are trustworthy.” A Public Policy Poll in 2011 found that 46% of Mississippi Republicans thought interracial marriage should be illegal

It’s obvious that Tea Party politicians don’t like Democratic voters, who have been the majority of Americans in 5 of the past 6 Presidential elections, and by far the majority in both the Presidential and Congressional elections of 2012. But this goes beyond dislike: two-thirds of the most conservative Republicans see the Democratic Party as a “threat to the nation’s well-being”. Tea Party politicians don’t even like their fellow Republicans. They taunt other Republicans with the nickname RINO, Republicans In Name Only. They challenge established Republican politicians in primaries as insufficiently conservative. And as the Mississippi election last month demonstrates, they don’t accept losing. McDaniel, who was beaten in a narrow primary by Senator Cochran,won’t say he will vote for him in November.

Tea Party politicians don’t really believe in democracy. Not only does McDaniel argue that some people should not have been allowed to vote against him. He, like other Tea Party politicians, does not want to govern democratically. They want to impose their minority ideology on the rest of us. They believe that any compromise with the majority is evidence of evil. Dave Brat, who defeated Eric Cantor in Virginia, had a photo of Cantor speaking with President Obama prominently displayed on his website.

The most conservative are the least likely among Americans to favor politicians who make compromises. They don’t care that their core beliefs are not shared by most Americans. They are not willing to acknowledge their minority status. An early poll showed that nearly all Tea Party supporters believed their ideas reflected the views of most Americans, although every poll shows that they don’t.

The tea party is nothing like their namesakes. They do not believe that all men have inalienable rights. Only they have the right to say what is right. They don’t want to govern, they want to dictate. They don’t like most Americans, who don’t agree with their ideas. They probably don’t like you.

They are intolerant and dangerous. They applaud when radicals like Cliven Bundy take up arms against the state. Imagine what tea party politicians would do if they had power, if they could command the police, the armed forces, the FBI. Imagine their reaction to criticism, to dissent, to Americans exercising our rights say “no.”

Recognize the danger that tea party politicians pose to our way of life. Don’t vote for them.

About Steve Hochstadt

Steve Hochstadt is professor of history at Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois, and author of Sources of the Holocaust (2004) and Exodus to Shanghai: Stories of Escape from the Third Reich (2012), both from Palgrave Macmillan. He writes a weekly column for the Jacksonville (IL) Journal-Courier and blogs for the History News Network. "His latest work is presented at www.stevehochstadt.com."

Comments

Professor how many tea party meetings have you attended? How many different areas of the country have you actually talked with members of the tea party or any “conservative” group?
Are there some selfish sobs in the tea party………no doubt. ANY group has some who fall short. To judge all in a group because of a few people is a bit narrow minded and intolerant. It would be like saying all professors are left wing radicals based on the words of one.

I am not a hater of the unemployeed, I am a hater of policies that further damage our fiscal health.

I don’t hate those who have suffered anything, be it within their control, or not. I do believe in holding people accountable, and fully expect adults to man/woman up to the consequences of their choices and actions.

How can one not like poor people as a whole? Rather large generalization you’re making isn’t it? And you’re a professor? Is this column tongue in cheek? Wouldn’t that be like someone saying they didn’t like *all* professors because *one* professor wrote and article that is not only wrong in it’s premise, but narrow minded and simple minded?

Immigrants? Really? Hmmmm, how about we believe the laws established for legal immigration be honored? If not, why not? Why do we have laws that aren’t acknowledged, not adhered to, not enforced. Do you even understand why we have those laws, what value they provide to a sovereign nation?

I don’t dislike Muslims, just the ones who terrorize, and/or, condone terrorism.

Democracy. You must be joking, right? The TP was established PRECISELY because we DO BELIEVE in Democracy.

Seriously, I have a very difficult time that you are an educated man, let alone teach. Research is a tool, use it.

Luis Lozano is right that groups motivated by fear can always find something else to be afraid of and thus to attack. I hope he is right that this particular manifestation of right-wing fears will eventually go away. I agree entirely that they are doing damage now and will in the future.

In short they don’t like any one or anything that is different. One good thing about these “purest” groups is that eventually they start disliking each other and pointing fingers against their own kind. They may find solace among themselves right now but when your life, your thinking and your world is built on fear the fear won’t stop when you accomplish your goal it finds something else to target and destroy. I’m saying just give them time and they’ll go away. They do need to be confronted and stopped everywhere as they can cause a lot of harm as they destroy themselves.

Wellness

Carole Bartolotto: The problem with concluding that GMOs are safe is that the argument for their safety rests solely on animal studies. These studies are offered as evidence that the debate over GMOs is over. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Environmentalism

Margo McCall: There’s increasing evidence that adopting a plant-based diet is better for human health, the planet, and of course for the more than 9 billion animals that are killed for consumption each year in the U.S alone.